Women’s Day Celebrated with 400 Women

As promised in our Women’s Day special post last week, here we are with the update on the Women’s Day celebratory event that took place last week in our Sangharnagar project area.

With more than 400 women in attendance, the event included a balanced blend of cultural activities along with some eminent orators talking on the contemporary issues of women in the world, particularly in India. The cultural performances included a musical performance by our in-house bundle of talent, Mr. Kalidas Rote who had written and composed a song on women empowerment and presented it on stage with one of our Preschool teachers.

Following the song performance, were two power-packed plays performed by the young and talent bunch of LSE (Life Skills Empowerment) girls on the issues faced by adolescent girls in the communities, and by the women of Self-Help Groups and Preschool teachers on issues faced by the adult women at home as well as outside homes. A lot of pertinent questions on safety, security and Rights were raised in these two plays, the answers to which was given by some eminent speakers on stage post the performances.

Following short addresses by our Founder & President, Mr. Jaume Sanllorente on how Mumbai Smiles has thrived over the years with the support of all the mothers, sisters and daughters of the communities we work with, and by Unit Head, Accounts & Admin, Mrs. Kushala Shetty on how men and women both must respect each other equally so we can see one day when no one is in need of a fight for Rights, the guest speakers took to stage to share some motivational words with the audience.

First speaker and Chief Guest was the Additional Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai, Dr. Pallavi Darade, who spoke at length about how a woman can be anything and everything that she wants to be, once she takes the decision to do so and then take that first step. Following the Chief Guest were the Guest Speakers, Mrs. Kavita Morvankar (writer and poet), Mrs. Pradnya Saraf (social activist) and Advocate Vaishali Tikle who spoke about empowering women with respect to their fields of work (photographs above in order of names mentioned).

An important segment of the event was felicitating three women from the community, who, over the years, with Mumbai Smiles, have shown tremendous strength and dedication and have been able to change the lives of themselves and their families, and are continuing their work by empowering other women of their communities with sheer perseverance and goodwill. And in this segment only, two posters were released on Rights guaranteed to women by the Constitution of India. We wish all the women, all the very best for their future endeavours and hope to see them succeed even more.